Weekly Jazz Lick - No 3

Here's a simple minor II - V lick using a couple of concepts. On the A-7b5 I use a G and A diminished triad pair (check out Jeff Schneider on how those work) and on the D7b9 a variation of the 7b9 pattern (the Db is a passing note) by Jerry Bergonzi. The G minor begins with a little variation of the D7b9 pattern.

George Garzone - MyMusicMasterclass.com

There are quite a few gems on YouTube featuring interviews with saxophone great George Garzone. These two from MyMusicMasterclass.com are very enjoyable and include lots of valuable tips despite the short length of the clips. Have a look at the rest of the MyMusicMasterclass series for huge amounts of insights from an assortment of great musicians.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW_POmRjVng

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMwQ8pnE9L4

To jump directly to the page on horns click here:

https://www.mymusicmasterclass.com/premium-videos/horns-newest/

Weekly Jazz Lick - No 2

Ok, it's been a while, but I have excuses ;) and now I will have more time to do what I set out to.

Here is a simple lick involving triad pairs on a II-V-I. It uses Ab and Bb triads, going up one way and down the other. Of course there are many other combinations and rhythmic combinations that can be used but the idea here is to use the major triads built on the 4th and 5th degree of the I chord.

Chris Potter - NYU Steinhardt Jazz Studies

You Tube is a wonderful place. If you haven't seen these already, have a look at these series of clips from an interview with Chris Potter from the NYU Steinhardt Jazz Interview Series at SubCulture in New York. It's always very informative to hear the greats talk about music. Wonderful stuff for any musician.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGERvPmeHCM

5 Android music making apps - that really work

I love making music on the go, but sadly Android isn't the best platform. It has latency issues so making live music is not really an option.

However there are plenty of good apps worth spending your money on if you want to produce some very good music away from the laptop.

Here are a few good ones in brief:

Caustic - Gives conventional DAWs a run for their money. Totally usable with tons of rack mounted synths and features. This is a fully fledged music making program - and from what I hear beats the mobile FL studio hands down. No regrets when I bought this.

Rd4 - I love this little gadget. It works well even on the phone. It's a remake of the famous Rebirth by Propellerhead. With clever use, you can program some nice sounding retro loops and then export them to use in other apps of programs. I just love the TB 303 bass synth.

Oscilab - This is a good one. A bit of the wall as a sequencer, and you have to fiddle a bit to make good music but it works really well and you can even use it on the fly with the live controllers. Latency is not an issue. Here you have a choice of 4 wave making synths, each with a further oscillator which you can alter independently. It also comes with two drum tracks. Just drag your finger until you come up with the desired results and tweak away with effects and filters. It's really good fun since you can tune each wave to a specific scale. You can make good music with this.

Lil Drum machine - A fantastic 808 style drum sequencer with tons of features. You can really go to town here making beats and then tweaking them to perfection.

J4T - This is a small but very functional multi-track recorder and editor. If you want to combine all the other things you have recorded this is a great tool. Each of these app exports to Wav, so just import them into this and you are set. A great tool.

Yamaha PSR S 970 - Soundfonts

Thanks to the YEM - Yamaha expansion manager supplied by Yamaha there are many things one can do with the keyboard beyond regular use. One of the great things that you can do is to import your own samples to make new sounds. The easiest way to do this is with soundfonts - Sf2 files. On the internet lots of free samples are available, and they come ready mapped so that all you have to do is plug them into the YEM, create your own expansion pack and load it into the keyboard via USB. I did this with Rhodes and EP sounds to great effect. At a later point I will explain this in more detail. 

https://soundcloud.com/mattav/soundfont-demo-yamaha-psr-s970-time-remembered

A short demo of some of the sounds